Why My Job Is Rad

As with all jobs, there are parts of my job that are headache-inducing, frown-forming, poke-my-eyes-out-with-hot-sticks worthy. There are also lots of rad bits. One of the really rad bits is my responsibility for the Direct Aid Program or DAP.

The DAP is dapper. It is a small grants scheme where villages can apply for funding for community related projects like water tanks and class room buildings. It is a way of avoiding a bit of the bureaucratic bungling that can go on by getting the money to places where it is needed lickety-split. While we put in the funding, the communities are responsible for the labour and management of the project.

My job is to manage the application process and to chair the selection committee while also drafting many reports back to Canberra to assure them that the Aussie tax payer’s dollar is being well spent.

Every so often I also get to make a trip to the provinces to check up on the progress of some of the projects and attend the handing-over ceremonies for the projects that have been completed.

I have been on a few of these trips now and they are always amazing and very eye-opening (giving me a chance to pull out those hot sticks).

Invariably, they start with an early morning flight in a tiny plane

to some remote, overgrown airstrip serviced by a pretty flash airport.

Then it is a ride in the back of a truck along a bumpy bush track to get to the first village (we usually try to knock over about 3 villages a day, depending on the distances involved).


Sometimes we need to jump in a boat because the roads are bad or non-existent or the village is on an even more remote island.

Sometimes we have to hoof it. These treks can be long...


but the scenery is usually pretty spectacular.

And the effort is always worth it because of the welcome you get when you arrive. Lots of singing and speeches of thanks

and sometimes even a kastom danis (custom dance)

or a gift to say thanks Australia! And what better way to say it than with a giant yam and a live chicken!

There is always a lot of hand-shaking involved.

Or super cheesy publicity shots to send to the local newspaper. These ones didn’t make the grade...

We often stay with the villagers who have been funding recipients so we get to hear the full story – what has worked, what hasn’t, who left the bags of cement out in the rain to go hard, who pinched some of the timber to complete a home(hut)-reno job. But mostly the stories are good.

We eat lots of interesting food

And meet lots of lovely people along the way.

Then after about 3 or 4 days, it is back to work and back to sitting in front of a computer again....

but with the question of ‘why am I doing this all again?’ pushed a little further back in my mind.